Living Well Blog » Health & Wellness

How to Best Help Alzheimer’s Caregivers? Teach Them Mindfulness!

Doris Bersing — Tue, 22 May 2012 22:31:29 +0000

Marguerite Manteau-Rao warn us about caregivers’ burn out. She says on the Huffington Post: “…For the 15 million in this country who are caring for a loved one with dementia*, this is what life is like — according to the Alzheimer’s Association 2012 Report:

61 percent of dementia caregivers suffer from high emotional stress
33 percent report symptoms of depression
They experience caregiving strain regarding financial issues (56 percent), and family issues (53 percent).
43 percent experience high physical stress
75 percent are concerned about maintaining their health.
Dementia caregivers are more likely to have adverse physiological changes such as high levels of stress hormones, reduced immune function, increased hypertension, coronary heart disease.
37 percent rate stress as their greatest difficulty.
In the last year of their loved one’s life, 59 percent feel they are on duty 24 hours a day.
72 percent of caregivers express relief after their loved ones die.

Monitoring Your Health With Mobile Devices

Doris Bersing — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 23:27:17 +0000

By PETER WAYNER Published: February 22, 2012 in the NY Times
Dr. Eric Topol is only half joking when he says the smartphone is the future of medicine — because most of his patients already seem “surgically connected” to one.

But he says in all seriousness that the smartphone will be a sensor that will help people take better control of their health by tracking it with increasing precision. His book, “The Creative Destruction of Medicine,” lays out his vision for how people will start running common medical tests, skipping office visits and sharing their data with people other than their physicians. Dr. Topol, a cardiologist and director of Scripps Translational Science Institute in La Jolla, Calif., is already seeing signs of this as companies find ways to hook medical devices to the computing power of smartphones. Devices to measure blood pressure, monitor blood sugar, hear heartbeats and chart heart activity are already in the hands of patients. Read the NY Times article

Bringing Health Care Home

Doris Bersing — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 23:30:21 +0000

Jesse Lefkowitz, NY Times

An article on the New York Time state that “…patients who are treated at home by a doctor and nursing staff who know them intimately and can be available 24/7 are happier and healthier. This kind of care decreases the infections, mistakes and delirium, which, especially among the elderly, are the attendants of hospital care. And it is far more efficient. According to a 2002 study, for the patients treated by the Veterans Affairs’ Home Based Primary Care program, the number of days spent in hospitals and nursing homes was cut by 62 percent and 88 percent, respectively, and total health care costs dropped 24 percent… The fact that this care is possible at home means that the role of hospitals must change. Acutely ill patients who need operating rooms or intensive care will still be brought to hospitals. But they should be quickly discharged to the care of the doctors and nurses who know them best”
Read the article

Dangers of Common Painkillers: There’s mounting evidence that regular use is risky for older people

Doris Bersing — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 17:11:41 +0000

A recent article on AARP states that “…Most of us don’t think twice about taking a nonprescription pain reliever to ease a headache or soreness that might follow a game of tennis, but there is growing evidence that commonly used painkillers such as Advil can trigger heart attacks or strokes in some people.” Read the article and read about some drug free alternatives to pain management.

Essential Checklist for Good Dementia Care

Doris Bersing — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 00:37:15 +0000

Marguerite Manteau-Rao, LCSW, ATR, Mindful living advocate, Memory care consultant, published on the Huffington Post The Essential Checklist for Good Dementia Care. She shares the work of Jane Verity’s about the 5 universal needs to be an essential framework for good care of people with Dementia. These unmet emotional needs are:

To be needed and useful
To have opportunity to care
To love and be loved
To have self-esteem boosted
To have the power to choose

Read the article

Secrets our Loved Ones hide and How Gero-Technology can help….

Doris Bersing — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 00:41:46 +0000

When it comes to care for our loved ones, we worry about falls, their being alone and injured, time response to a crisis and most of the times, our alternative is moving them to an institution. Living Well Assisted Living at Home believes that there are options to give choices to the elders and peace of mind to the family members. Aging.com reported on 10 secrets that our aging parents keeps from us and some ways to deal with and approach them. I couldn’t help but think of all sorts of technology solutions (remote monitoring like GrandCare, Internet technology, etc.) that could assist in dealing with these 10 “secrets” shared in the story. Of course, technology is only one piece to the puzzle. Read More

The Cognistat web seminar

Doris Bersing — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 17:47:15 +0000

Tuesday, June 28, 2011 | 12:00 PM Pacific / 1:00 PM Mountain / 2:00 PM Central / 3:00 PM Eastern

We are entering an era in which an increasing percentage of the US population will be older than retirement age. These older adults will bring a renewed focus to brain and body fitness, including access to quality medical screening and diagnosis. Cognitive assessment is a critical component of both brain fitness and medical management, and proper assessment tools are essential. A seminar that examines specific needs of an aging population, as well as five major areas of cognition. Available methods of cognitive assessment will be explored, along with the design of one of these methods: the Cognistat Assessment System.

Learn more.

Eldercare Robots Ready to Help Tend to Needs of Aging Population

Doris Bersing — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 23:26:24 +0000

James Vlahos/The Daily

In an article in The Daily by James Vlahos, we learn that the elder-friendly robots are here to engage and to help burnout caregivers. Vlahos says: “…Robots may be our best option to pick up the slack — or so say the pioneers of eldercare robotics, which is being pursued by corporations from Toyota to NEC as well as university robotic labs worldwide…”

Read Part 1

Read Part 2

A Doctor’s Focus Is the Minds of the Elderly

Doris Bersing — Mon, 02 May 2011 19:30:35 +0000

James Estrin/The New York Times

Now, a growing number of experts are calling for integrating mental health professionals into all levels of communities for the rising population of aging Americans, from nursing homes to assisted-living centers.

Gary Kennedy, the director of geriatric psychiatry at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, says psychological care is “equally if not more important than” medical care for this group. “Health policy continues to lag behind the reality that these are now mental health facilities,” Dr. Kennedy said of communities for the elderly.

While Alzheimer’s receives the lion’s share of public attention, garden-variety depression, anxiety and sleep disorders also accompany old age. Particularly for late-life depression, Dr. Agronin points to data assembled by the psychiatry department at the supporting behavioral and group therapy, treatment rarely tried with patients from generations typically considered averse to discussing such issues.

Temporary memory loss strikes hospitalized seniors

Doris Bersing — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 22:08:09 +0000

Battling an illness, lack of sleep and strange surroundings can make any hospital patient feel out of sorts. Medical advocacy is key when having a senior in this condition. Hospitalization not only jeopardizes the general wellness of a senior but his/her dignity and self-confidence. Besides getting sicker at some point, seniors are usually placed on diapers to avoid labor-intensive trips to the bathroom and usually when confused, they are misunderstood on their needs. This article about how confused they can be and how memory loss occurs is the icing on the cake.

As we said, for seniors, hospitalizations actually may cause temporary memory loss and difficulty in understanding discharge instructions, according to a new Northwestern Medicine study.

The cited study found that seniors go back to normal one month after the hospital stay. But immediately following a hospitalization, it is a critical time in which seniors may need extra support from professionals and family, according to Lee Lindquist, the lead author of the study, published online in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, March 2011.